Background

2125-2109 B.C.E.

Eshe was born at the dawn of what Historians of Antiquity now call the Middle Kingdom of Ancient Egypt, also know as the 12th Dynasty under the reign of Pharoah Senusret I. She was of Royal Blood, the daughter of a cousin of the Pharoah and raised in relative luxury waited on by slaves and educated by the finest scholars of her day. She was a bright girl, quick to pick up on concepts even her male peers struggled with. Her beauty was known far and wide and a marriage was arranged between herself and one of her cousins, Khety, a man fifteen years her elder. He was a powerful warrior and Commander in the Pharoah's army, personally responsible for helping the current one in his rise to power. She did not love him

Her heart belonged to one of her tutors, a man barely older than she named Hapseth. She knew her love was contrary to the wishes of her Father but she could not deny the needs of the heart and the two planned to run off together despite their differing status. Their plan was discovered and they were captured on the night of their escape by her supposed Betrothed.

Khety had friends who practiced powerful sorcery and he decided to call upon them to punish the two lovers. With the permission of the Pharoah, the young scholar was tortured to death and thrown to the Crocodiles in the Nile. Eshe, being a Noble was not subject to such an ignominious end but neither was she to be granted the honor of Mummification. She was cursed and sealed alive inside a tomb which was then covered in sand to hide it for all Eternity.

Her curse was a particularly cruel one. She was sealed in the dark and denied the touch of the Sun unable to see. Worse, she was placed in waking stasis. She did not need to eat, she did not need to breath, all of her biological functions ceased but her conscious mind continued but she was unable to learn, to change in any way. She was trapped in eternal sameness, unaging and undying for Millenia, denied even the release of Madness.

2009 C.E.

An expedition sponsored by the Egyptian Department of Antiquities digging outside of the Valley of the Kings discovered Eshe's prison and broke the seal. She was found unmoving, staring straight up at the ceiling, apparently a statue until someone touched her and found her skin to be soft, her flesh warm to the touch. The workers fled, fearing a curse. It took a second group to come and remove her from her tomb, bringing her to Cairo University. Once she left the sands of the Valley, the curse was lifted and she was able to move and speak again. No one understood her for her language was so different from that of modern Egyptian and it took a Coptic Monk to translate.

She was desperate to learn, a sponge for knowledge and under the teachings of the Monk quickly learned modern Egyptian and English. She was questioned extensively, run through tests and determined to be a healthy teenage girl in almost perfect condition aside from some dental issues which were fixed easily enough. Unfortunately, the first workers spread the story of the cursed girl and a mob stormed the University. Eshe barely escaped with the help of her Coptic friend and was taken to safety in Syria.

Shocked and stunned by the changes and oppression in the time between her last time in the world and now, she grew angry and discovered that she was not only cursed, but somehow blessed with new abilities by the Goddesses of Ancient Egypt as a reward for following love instead of duty so long ago.

The Gift of Isis: Eternal Health
The Gift of Sekhmet: Resistance to the Heat of the Desert
The Gift of Selkhet: Ability to create and control Scarab Beetles
The Gift of Nekhebet: The ability to Fly
The Gift of Taueret: The Strength of the Hippo and Skill with the Sword

Leaping into the air, she soared away from Egypt, leaving the land of her birth, a land that no longer held any meaning to her and in fact, posed the greatest danger to her life. She headed West over the sea, to find a land her beloved tutor had told her about. A land of learning and building beyond even Egypt Herself. The fabled land of Atlantis.

It was no longer there.

She ended up instead in the United States and was taken into custody. Given asylum as a Neohuman, Eshe was tested for what she could do. In addition to commanding the winds, she could summon Scarab Beetles from inside of herself, manifesting as hair clips until needed when they would come to life and help her and even if destroyed would reform overnight to help her again. She was also eternally young, incredibly strong, resistant to heat and seemed to suffer no ill effects from poisons or modern diseases. Unsure of what to do with her and unwilling to turn her over to the Egyptian Government who claimed her as a stolen artefact, her caseworker decided to send her to Steranko, promising her she could learn all about the world and the changes made in the millenia since last she walked among the living.

Personality

Eshe is a very curious girl trapped in a world of entirely new ideas, things and people. Coming from a time before the invention of the printing press or even illuminated manuscripts, she was initially unfamiliar with books but now loves them and cherishes new sources of knowledge. After being introduced to television, she could spend entire days watching things like the History Channel and Discovery, absorbing information. She loves to interact with other people and can talk for hours on the most mundane subjects. She craves sensation and becomes affectionate easily and eats new things without hesitation despite her lack of a need to actually eat. She even enjoys sleep, something she was denied during the aeons of her curse. She smiles and laughs easily though gets confused by pop cultural references but she seems to enjoy sometimes bawdy or vulgar humor.

Though she comes from a time when childhood ended before the age of 12 and girls were expected to marry at that age, Eshe is thrilled to be in a culture where adolecents actually exist as a seperate stage of maturity. She can seem overly mature and responsible at times but also revels in the youth culture of today, dancing and dating and getting into trouble without the threat of being killed or exiled. She will almost always go along with the other kids no matter how ridiculous the scheme is. She also despises the current political and religious situation in the Middle East, especially the hegemony of a monotheistic worldview and the apparent subjugation of women in general. Somehow, she identified more with the Western worldview, no matter how alien or bizarre it is if only for the freedom of knowledge and information prevalent there.

However, in combat Eshe is another person entirely. Due to her Gift from the Goddess of vengeance, Eshe has a take no prisoners attitude towards actual enemies. In sparring, she will hold back so as not to injur an opponent but when facing a villain she will aim to end the combat as quickly, efficiently and sometimes brutally as possible. She has to be reminded not to aim to kill at times and really does not understand the modern ideal of leaving a foe alive to face justice. She firmly believes that if someone tries to kill you, they deserve death in kind. She does, however, hold back if reminded and tries as hard as she can to avoid killing, not because she has a problem with it but because she does not wish to violate the societal norms of this strange new world she finds herself in.

She will defend her friends fiercely and is almost fanatically loyal to her teammates and anyone who fights on her side in battle. Though she is of Royal blood, she does not mind taking orders from others and is more comfortable as a follower than a leader, despite her Charisma and Leadership potential. This carries over off the Battlefield where she listens to other she thinks know more than she and often takes their advice over her own thoughts. If she discovers she has been lied to or manipulated though, she is quick to anger and lash out, sometimes with force. She holds grudges and does not forgive easily those who have violated her Trust. Her policy: Trust freely but never forgive those who violate that trust.

Complications:
Eshe has been locked away for over 4000 years, the world is a strange and wondrous place to her. Things people take for granted tend to enrapture her such as Airplane, cars, sliding automatic doors, television, telephones, recorded music and even printed books and photographs. She can be easily distracted with wondrous new items she's never thought of before.

This also leads her to be absolutely technologically illiterate and socially awkward. She has no idea how to work a computer, a phone or even an oven to cook. She has a tendency to fall back on the solutions of her own time, even if they are not practical or reasonable in this one. She also has no problems with the concepts of Slavery, Vengeance or Killing Your Enemies. She is learning about that last one but the others may take time, especially as her Enhanced Strength is a Gift from the Goddess of Revenge.

Eshe gets depressed sometimes when the full weight of her situation hits her. Everyone she ever knew or loved is dead, her one true love lost in the sands of time for eternity, even the Kingdom she was a part of is just ruins and scattered fragments of parchment. For all intents and purposes, the world ended for her and this is some strange, alien one that took its place.

Though the Curse of Living Death placed upon Eshe has been broken enough to allow her to move and learn and experience again, she will never truly be free of it. Returning her to her tomb or exposing her to the sands of her resting place will trigger it again, sending her back into a state of unchanging, conscious stasis. Worse, she is not entirely sure the curse has left her alive or that her powers have not just given her a semblance of life for she does not age or feel the effects of things as she once did and though these might be the blessings of the Goddesses, they could also be a sign that she is far from actually, fully alive.

Lastly, the Egyptian government wants Eshe back, badly. She is a living link to the past of their country, the only known speaker of actual Ancient Egyptian, a valuable historic item. That's the problem though, they treat her as an object and not a person. She hates this and seeks the escape those who would control or own her. She is no slave. She is also pretty much trapped in the United States for now as her asylum does not extend outside of those borders.